Olde Trade Tools

A nice man filled the box of my truck on Tuesday night with tools… ‘fer a “hunert” bucks! We were kind of helping each other out.

I just started to pull the load out and there was a pile of tongs including these hand forged log skidders. I had to “spit and rub” twice (don’t miscontracept me there) to bring up a name and what appears to be a date: 83. Imagine the forearms on the person that hammered this out!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go wash my hands… I feel dirty…

Added the last two koi to my collection tonight. The white Kohaku with the red steps and the light blue Asagi with the red blush tipped fins and underside. The others are Shiro Becko’s, Sanke. Somewhere in there is a Showa. These guys are all about 5” to 10” now.

The Asagi is one of the best I’ve seen.

If you want to add some great Koi, Hydrosphere (Bradford) has some great Japanese stock in. They had quite a few 20+” fish.

Great place to visit at this time of year.

Am I sensing a move towards wood?

Last weekend at the Pickering Tools of the Trades Show, I was not prepared… and so decided to put out a pile of wood planes from a recent pick. It was good wood but, still… I was expecting to sell maybe $30… Try over $600… my take is that it was primarily user rather than collector.

Hollow and Round pairs, Tongue and Groove pairs; a panel raiser; a Mathieson plow with complete set of Mathieson irons. Another set of Nurse matched irons…

There are probably a few reasons for this. From a utility standpoint, wood planes tend to be more purpose built; have better support/registration in many cases; tighter mouths in many cases. As long as the condition is good, they are an excellent option. Because there is not much competition for them; the decorator crowd have abandoned them; and the fact that they are misunderstood in many cases; they are relatively low cost compared to their metal counterparts.

Up until about 1990 wood was king in the collecting world… maybe we are entering a new renaissance.

What a pleasant surprise!